Page:War Drums (1928).pdf/205

 other sound in the world. Around the two swordsmen, Jock Pearson's pack-horse drivers and Lance Falcon's followers formed a wide circle under the far-spaced trees. Some still sat their horses; others had dismounted; one pock-marked, earringed seaman, his head swathed in a silken yellow scarf, sprawled at full length on the ground, his villainous face supported in cupped hands. It would be a long fight, he perceived, and he would enjoy it in comfort.

It had already lasted longer than most of Lance Falcon's fights. Its first fierce phase was over, the phase of impetuous attack and savage reprisal, the phase of experiment. Falcon knew now that his task was hard, that some strange chance had brought to the New World a fencing master who was equal, perhaps, to the best in Europe.

He had known some of these teachers of the sword; clever men, but inclined to be academic, to insist too much upon form and style. It had pleased his fancy sometimes in the cities of the Continent to match himself against these professional pedants of rapier-play, and there had been only one, a certain De Bon of Paris, whom he had failed to touch with his covered point. Five years had passed since he had fenced with that tall, lanky Frenchman, but there was something in the sword-work of this little Irish pedagogue that recalled the methods of De Bon.

Falcon had drawn first blood. Within the first few minutes of the fight, his point had touched O'Sullivan's arm. But it was a mere touch, not the clean,